ONE PIECE: Aaron Tinder and Amy Uthus

We have not just one ONE PIECE for you, but TWO (I know, right)!!! Invited artists in the current exhibit, Aaron Tinderand Amy Uthus shared with us about one their works we are currently showing. Happy reading!

Aaron Tinder

This piece is a good example of a process that I've been exploring for about a year now. It involves the juxtaposition of dissimilar elements in a way that reconciles them into some kind of formal composition. Specifically in this piece it's an old book cover that's been altered and recycled, combined with fragments of two particular kinds of imagery: floral/natural designs and a drag racing scene from a vintage automotive publication. The use of these kinds of subject matter (which could be interpreted as embodying masculine & feminine stereotypes) forces the elements of the artwork together in ways that are sometimes awkward and unexpected. It results in a composition that utilizes shape and interaction in very exploratory ways, but also finds the common ground in things pulled from diverse source materials. Pattern is something that I deliberately use often as a transition element in these works, and it often becomes a kind of necessary common ground.

A Fictional Version, Found materials on paper, 15 x 11 inches

The viewer can read this piece as a symbolic interpretation of what happens when influences from divergent sources are forced together (as in genetics from two parents, for example), or simply as a formal exercise in making something awkwardly beautiful from old discarded things. I'm happy either way, because it's both.

Amy Uthus

The little porcelain boat and charred piece of wood, titled Precipice, represents one of my first forays into small scale sculpture. I love to make large installations that take over entire rooms. However, not everyone who loves art wants to dedicate an entire room to one piece! I have always loved tiny objects. With these two ideas in mind, I decided to try my hand at an intimate scale.

Precipice, Porcelain boat, charred wood, 1 5/8 x 3/4 x 1/2 inches

At a direct level, boats are vessels that carry objects and creatures from point A to point B. However, in the process they also transport intangibles - ideas, customs, hopes and dreams. Perhaps it is because of this that boats have historically been used to carry souls from one realm to the next and have come to represent navigation through life.

This boat is made of thin porcelain. In a nod to Viking funerals and my Scandinavian heritage, it sits atop a charred block of wood. Its delicacy and position perched on the edge of a precipice represent a moment of uncertainty. In this moment, a decision must be made - to stay safely sailing in known waters or to take a deep breath and plunge into the unknown.